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Northeastern University and Colorado Christian University students
receive runner up awards to round out scholarship initiative winners

Salem, NH – Motivis Learning today announced the winners of its inaugural 2017 Aspiring Educator Scholarship Initiative, which was created to help ease the financial burden of future teachers. The three winning students, Kimberly Pfeifer, Asaad Fulton and Rebecca Tamayo, who are all enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program in education at different universities around the country, were bestowed a total of $13,000, with $10,000 to the winner and $2,000 and $1,000 going to second and third place.

To apply for the scholarship, Motivis asked applicants to share how they will use their career to make a difference in the lives of their students through teaching, how they plan to change the world through education and how they will promote student success in the classroom through community engagement, emerging instructional practices and/or educational technology. 146 students participating in undergraduate, graduate and PhD programs at 91 different universities and colleges competed for the scholarship.

Kimberly Pfeifer, a first year doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who is part of the Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies department with a focus in children, families and schools, was awarded the first place prize of $10,000. In her winning submission, Pfeifer talked about her vision for the future of education in America: classrooms designed to actively engage students in their community and world. Originally a teacher for more than five years, Pfeifer recently decided to pursue a PhD in the hopes of learning more theory to help support her pedagogical practice.

Kimberly’s goal as a teacher is to create change within the classroom through her vision of radical change in the overall US education system with regards to the ways in which students learn and teachers teach, doing away with antiquated systems of schooling, with the overarching goal of achieving better efficiency in the classroom. She plans to use her scholarship to travel to Finland, where schools have implemented Phenomenon Based Learning on a large scale. In addition, she’d like to visit New Orleans to learn more about the process of writing a Charter, something every school in the city did after Hurricane Katrina.

“I cannot thank Motivis Learning enough for this generous $10,000 scholarship,” said Pfeifer. “I am so incredibly appreciative as this money will give me the opportunity to travel to Finland and other areas to learn and further enhance my skills to help support my pedagogical practice. Financially speaking, graduate school is extremely difficult which is why I am so grateful that Motivis gives future teachers like myself this kind of opportunity, as it will help me more than words can express.”

“We received nearly 150 applications from current and future educators who will make a difference in the world,” said Brian Peddle, CEO, Motivis Learning. “It was extremely hard to narrow it down to three finalists from the impressive list of submissions, and then choose a winner. We were moved and inspired – not just by Kimberly, Asaad and Rebecca – but by ALL of the outstanding submissions. As Motivis continues to grow we hope to do more to help educators succeed.”

The second and third place recipients also both have impressive goals for the future of education. Fulton stated in his submission that his degree in education will help him take up a leadership position in education to raise awareness about the lack of diversity in the education field, and eventually he would like to open a school of his own that incorporates and encourages diversity. Tamayo has a goal of using and promoting technology in the classroom for children on the autism spectrum to enhance their learning and communication skills to better prepare them for further education goals and eventually a career.

The average 2016 college graduate holds $37,172 in student debt, which is up six percent from 2015, according to calculations by student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz, while NewYorkFed.org states that there are currently more than 44 million Americans with student loan debt. However, certain organizations are slowly starting to see the severity of this issue, and Motivis Learning, the Learning Relationship Management System designed for student-centered, personalized education models, is one of them.

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About Motivis LearningMotivis Learning is a Learning Relationship Management (LRM) platform specifically designed to deliver student-centric, personalized learning programs. The LRM platform fully integrates data from LMS, SIS and community tools to deliver a single, clear view of the full student narrative. Motivis Learning was born out of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University and was first put to work in SNHU’s next-generation CBE program, College for America, which became the first CBE program of its kind approved by a regional accreditor and the U.S. Department of Education. Today, Motivis Learning is trusted by leading higher education and K-12 institutions, including Harvard University, Cornell University and EF Academy. For more information, please visit www.motivislearning.com.

$10,000 Scholarship Geared to Ease the Financial Burden of a Deserving

Salem, NH – Motivis Learning, the Learning Relationship Management System designed for student-centered, personalized education models, today announced its new 2017 Aspiring Educator Scholarship Initiative, aimed towards students enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program in education. In January 2017, the company will award one $10,000 scholarship to a student who tells Motivis Learning how they will make a difference through teaching. Qualified students can learn more about how to enter a submission here.

A 2015 analysis of student debt by U.S. News & World Report showed that those who received master’s degrees in education accounted for 17 percent of graduate students who are $50,000 or more in debt. “We know the heavy financial burden of pursuing their degrees can deter even the most inspired future teachers – but our goal at Motivis Learning is to keep them inspired, which is why we created our inaugural scholarship initiative for students pursuing a career in education,” said Motivis Learning CEO, Brian Peddle. “This is our way of giving back to the education community we care so much about, and showing that Motivis is invested not only in education technology, but in the people who are truly shaping the success of our future generations.”

For the inaugural scholarship, Motivis is asking future educators to explain how they will use their career to make a difference in the lives of their students.

In no more than 800 words (but no fewer than 500), tell us how you plan to change the world through education. More specifically, will you promote student success in the classroom and beyond, through community engagement, emerging instructional practices, and/or educational technology?

Applicants must be 18 years or older, and enrolled in an accredited graduate or undergraduate education program in the U.S. or Canada. Please include an unofficial transcript as proof of enrollment with your submission

The deadline for the 2017 scholarship is February 28, 2017. Motivis Learning will notify recipients on March 31, 2017

For more information about this program, including judgment criteria, please refer to the Aspiring Educator Scholarship official rules.

In October, Motivis Learning launched its new Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System, answering the call of K-12, higher education and continuing education institutions for a personalized, student-centered, and competency-based education (CBE) learning platform. The LRM System is a next generation, cloud-based software platform that fully-integrates Motivis’ Learning Management System (LMS), campus community system, coaching and advising platform and student information functions. It has combined all four systems – typically thought of as isolated education technology systems – into one seamless platform that is powered by Salesforce CRM.

About Motivis LearningMotivis Learning has built the first Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System specifically designed for innovative, student-centric and personalized teaching and learning models. The platform was born out of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University and put to work in SNHU’s next-generation CBE program, College for America, the first CBE of its kind approved by a regional accreditor and the US Department of Education. Backed by decades of success in education, pedagogy and technology, the LRM system is a fully-integrated suite of learning tools (built on Salesforce) that delivers the true 360-degree view of the student. Fully integrating the LMS, SIS, campus communication system and ePortfolio into a single platform. For more information, visit www.motivislearning.com, or connect with Motivis Learning on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Salem, NH – Answering the call of thousands of K-12, higher education and continuing education institutions for a learning platform built from the ground up for personalized, student-centered, and competency-based education (CBE), Motivis Learning today introduced its new Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System, a next generation, cloud-based software platform for educational institutions – students, teachers, administrators and alumni.

The Motivis LRM is a holistic learning environment that fully-integrates Motivis’ Learning Management System (LMS), campus community system, coaching and advising platform and student information functions. Motivis Learning has combined all four systems – typically thought of as isolated education technology systems – into one seamless platform that is powered by Salesforce CRM.

“Developing a comprehensive teaching and learning platform for competency-based and other student-centric education models is not a one size fits all proposition,” said Motivis Learning CEO Brian Peddle. “Every education institution approaches outcomes-based learning differently. We spent the past two years working with seven design partners – different higher education institutions who each had their own implementation requirements – to ensure that the new Motivis Learning LRM solution was designed to support multiple models of education, as well as allow for more traditional institutions to experiment with new models without being confined to legacy systems.”

The Motivis Learning LRM System was designed and built by technologists with decades of experience in education and pedagogy. The evolved LRM platform includes:

Flexible curriculum creation for multi-tiered personalized and competency-based programs. Educators can create competency and sub-competency collections per program and tie mastery to assignment deliverables

Support for multiple roles for a single user; users can be curriculum designers at the same time they are an educator or student

Gradebook that illustrates a holistic view of students’ progress for assignments or towards mastering competencies and performance indicators

Social networking tool that allows institutions to create a private branded community for their campus to connect and collaborate. Combine the social front-end with Salesforce’s big data back-end to open new opportunities for student reporting

A student information bridge where administrators can track every student’s learning journey – from applicant to student to alumni and beyond – from one centralized record

“As our college and many others in the nation look to address the skills gap between higher education and the workforce, and as competency-based education appears more and more to be the clear curriculum that best prepares college graduates, we needed a system that was designed with that flexibility in mind,” said Ron Skallerud, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Nicolet College. “Motivis Learning was the clear leader in this area and it has these foundations in its DNA. We are excited to be working as partners with them on this front.”

Motivis Learning’s new platform addresses the paradigm shift to competency-based education in the US market. As reported by Inside Higher Ed, last year there were 52 colleges and universities implementing competency models across the country. This year, there are over 600 schools working to make the move to competency based education: almost a 12,000% increase in a single year. That number is anticipated to grow as more universities work to bridge the gap between education and the successful transition to career. Motivis LRM is designed for CBE programs and works with direct assessment as well as traditional course/credit hour-based programs.

“When we learned about Motivis we were already in search of a holistic database, data management, and customer management solution that could integrate with a Learning Management System. On top of that, the fact that we could get our learning platform built on top of Salesforce, a powerful and flexible CRM, really sold us,” said Nate McClennen, Vice President of Education and Innovation at Teton Science Schools. “The fact that they were building a student-centered system from the ground up, and not modifying a traditional system to fit into a outcomes-based model, was also key for us.”

As Motivis continues to enhance the LRM, it will increasingly leverage machine learning to develop cognitive augmentation tools, helping students and educators engage in truly personalized learning experiences and creating a powerful suite of tools to drive student success and degree completion.

For more information about the new Motivis LRM or about partnering with Motivis Learning please visit motivislearning.com.

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About Motivis LearningMotivis Learning has built the first Learning Relationship Management (LRM) System specifically designed for innovative, student-centric and personalized teaching and learning models. The platform was born out of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University and put to work in the SNHU’s next-generation CBE program, College for America, the first CBE of its kind approved by a regional accreditor and the US Department of Education. Backed by decades of success in education, pedagogy and technology, the LRM system is a fully-integrated suite of learning tools (built on Salesforce) that delivers the true 360-degree view of the student. Fully integrating the LMS, SIS, campus communication system and ePortfolio into a single platform. For more information, visit www.motivislearning.com, or connect with Motivis Learning on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

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